Entries tagged 'Post-Service Term Reflections'

For our second annual art e-news, we asked Krista colleagues to riff on our conference theme, "Holding Together". Read on to see and hear how Spencer, Chasity, Richard, Linda and Doug captured holding together in the face of difference. For larger images, see slideshow at the bottom of this post.

Spencer Uemura, 2016 Krista Colleague, "Migrations"

Chasity Jones, 2017 Krista Colleague, "Black Infinity"

SubmissionEmbarrassmentTongue TiedGuiltyObey AuthorityStay out of the wayDisposableIgnoredMade an example out ofA MascotA tokenFrustratedDon't be caught taking a break or you will determine the work ethic of all people who look like you. So instead, I work myself to death.Smile, even if you're tiredPretend to be interested in everything all the time.Survival is brutal- these lessons are vital.I can never acknowledge the pain that threatens my life.No permission to speak truth. Truth invalidated in every way possible- but so subtle.Will my truth get me fired? Will my truth cancel all of these wonderful opportunities?Have I obtained these opportunities because I am well trained in the art of relating to and pleasing the white faces that surround me.They tell me I'm different- than the black people they've known previously.This cuts me like a knife as I remember- I am no different because my people and I are ONE.

I am told speaking white is a gift.But I miss everything that was stripped in order to maintain this pale skin face lift.I've been brain washed, emotions repressed- colonized; my psyche occupied.Because of this, I've separated myself from the people who sustain me,From the mothers and fathers who raised me,From the people who embody divinity....No longer afraid of darkness, like America's taught me.So I embrace the black infinity- which is the Alpha and the Omega.I am an individual and stand with a community that the most descriptive words cannot describe its beauty and wonder.....I often wonder how many shades of black and brown exist.My heart is full as we together resist and RECLAIM all that was stolenTo my people, I am beholdingSo I exist.....in this space as a testimony with no limitsAware that every breath is an act of resistance.

Richard Murray, 2015 Krista Colleague, "Migrations"

The act of assemblage holds together disparate objects, creating new meanings. In the same way, I am holding together memories, ideas, people, and moments as layered lenses to create new perspectives.

This specific piece asks the question, "What is the potential for architecture to...?" I am on a journey to search for the remaining pieces to this question-

...create spaces for understanding...foster community ownership...empower communities of color

Linda Chastine, 2016 Krista Colleague

Dear Self,

You will learn that home is not a country or a city.

It does not lie between soiled sheets, where youthful giggles rise and inside jokes are created.

You will learn that it is not an innate feeling and does not necessarily deal in familiarity. ?Home is not in the motherland. with the people that hold the skin tone of your kin.

Home does not reside in the place where fear was taught and your heart first broke.

You will learn that home is not another person. Your search cannot be found in nostalgia or recovered in replayed images and regrets.

Again.

Home is not a place.

Home is not a person.

Home is not your momma, baby brother, or grandma.

It's not your college town.

It is not your bed after a long day of surviving.

Home is you.

There's nothing profound, yet something so magical about that discovery.

Hold onto it.

When your home feels like a prison, revisit this lesson.

When home is something like a dry and barren land, write it letters. Let it know that you miss its comforts. and probably haven't shown it all the love it needs, but you're trying.

Cook it dinners that make it sleepy, feed it food that gives it energy.

Let it sweat it out when the pressure gets so much that it wants to leave its frame.

Redecorate it.

Show pride in it.

Boast about it.

Take a tour every once in a while. You might discover somethings you didn't notice.

Facing death everyday while working in hospice for a year took Bridget Hinton ‘14 "to a deep place of mystery," she says. "Living day in and day out with sadness was a challenge but I also saw a lot of hope and love."

For the spiritual care office of Providence Memorial Hospital in Hood River, Oregon, the Jesuit volunteer would visit people receiving palliative care, drive them to appointments, run errands, do a little housekeeping, and often just sit and listen.

In the deepest, darkest moments, when she wasn't at all sure what to say, "I tried to put myself out of own comfort zone and just hold space, be comfortable with slowness and silence, even when I didn't know exactly how to relate to someone three generations beyond me."

Ongoing cross-cultural training with the Krista Foundation for Global Citizenship that includes recognizing the significance of generational, socio-economic, geographic and cultural nuances helped Bridget in these moments. Recognizing how her urban, diverse upbringing had shaped her lens helped her have empathy for the circumstances of her patients and listen without making assumptions, even when some of what she heard offended her.

She came to see that phrases like "they are here to take our jobs" reflected the frustrations of the rural and economically challenged Columbia Gorge community. "I would never use the words ‘I disagree' but sometimes I would push back slightly," she says. "I had to engage in conversation, but I tried not to prove anything. That was the art of the work, to not prove anything."

Now an Education Program assistant for Oregon State University extension, she teaches cooking classes and gives presentations on nutrition to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program recipients. She also is volunteer facilitator for a grief group of teens who have lost loved ones.

"The winter Debriefing Weekend affirmed my choice to take a break and take care of myself, but I still feel a calling to hospice social work," she says.

"I wanted a full-force hospice experience and that's what I got. Through the debriefing weekend, I could deeply pay attention to my service and admit that they were really hard years," she says. "I was yearning to reflect, and now I am yearning for service. That's when I lean into the Krista community, which says yes to applying service to life in every possible way."

What is a Krista Colleague? Meet one of our Krista Colleagues, Mitchell Dorn, who is exploring service-shaped implications in his life and vocation in Tacoma. Mitchell recognizes the necessity of being present within his community and emphasizes the Krista Foundation value of staying for tea (emphasizing relationship bulding).From Uber driver to events manager, into the non-profit world and out again-Mitchell Dorn's service journey has taken some interesting turns.

Participating in the life and ministry of Urban Grace Church through AmeriCorps, he plunged into the rich diversity of downtown Tacoma-and gradually realized that his strengths might lie in the for-profit world. Now he is growing a new business as Events Manager for the recently renovated Courthouse Square.

"I love my job and what I do, and I believe I am part of a bigger project that is making a difference downtown," he said. "Using my talents to their fullest capacity, having ideas, taking risks, watching them take off, and employing others is rewarding."

During the 2016 Krista Foundation Debriefing and Discernment Retreat, offered to Krista Colleagues after their service-year, Mitchell reflected with other Colleagues from different cultures and callings on how his new role impacts the community. One of the questions he explored concerned gentrification. What should he do as a white man living in a predominately African-American neighborhood where rents are rising and many people are displaced as downtown Tacoma revives? He is taking to heart their response: don't infiltrate the community. Be a part of it.

"Being part of a diverse group talking about serious issues, not afraid to step on each other's toes" is a gift of the gathered Krista Colleague community. "Understanding diversity and my world view are things I think about daily now, more than I ever did in AmeriCorps," he says. "I want to be a positive impact on my city."

Following two years with the Northwest Leadership Foundation's Urban Leaders in Training program, Taylor Tibbs '15 is a program manager for the Act 6 program who is beginning to claim her identity as a person of faith.

Faith was not part of my upbringing. But in part because of what happened at the annual Debriefing and Discernment retreat and partly because of where I work, I feel I can now call myself a spiritual person.

I have never been formally engaged with religion as a practice, and it has always felt very threatening before this chapter of my life. The possibility of being judged because of my lack of faith or engagement of it has been something my mind went to. When I first heard about the Krista Foundation, I thought, this organization is way too Christian for me! But I have found the community, the dialogue, the way we try to explore service, all in alignment with what I already think. Being with the community and talking about faith, it's like I am walking along a path laid by other people, and I'm comfortable doing that now.

At the debriefing, the final discernment activity asked us to imagine what our ideal version of God, the God that wants us to be the best version of ourselves, would say to us. I had a conversation that was weird but also nice. There was a moment at the end when I was overwhelmed by a feeling of calmness which I had never felt before. And I thought that's what God is.

I've learned there is a way to be, a way you can court faith, without feeling like you have to be all in at once. It's like wading in the water and seeing people who are diving in because they have always dived and people who are getting their feet a little wet and people who are kind of like you. When I was interviewing candidates this spring, I met a lot of people who were seasoned Olympians in the water and a couple people who were like, "this is nice, it's cool." I find myself really open to people who are like me in their spiritual journey.

What was stopping me from really exploring spirituality was that it felt like an overwhelming amount of work. I thought that the practice and experience would be heavy. I didn't think I was strong enough to lift it. But after the discernment exercise I thought, nope, I've been doing it! I have been interacting with that kind of energy or entity for a while but haven't been able to name it until I was surrounded by people who could say yep, that's what God feels like. It took being in a physical place and a mental space with people to explore that comfortably.

"During our Debriefing in February, we were given George Ella Lyon's poem "Where I'm From" and asked to rewrite it from our own individual perspectives. What are the places, the people, the experiences that form your path? The result was over 12 poems that reflected our distinct experiences along our service journey.

We realized that the "Where I'm From" poems could become even more powerful if combined as our group's collective journey. "Where We're From" is an attempt to share our individual stories and to recognize the influence of our time together as a group. The stanzas are kept intact, but rearranged with each other's poems to create a single narrative. The poem contains individual poems by Jerrell Davis '14, Taylor Tibbs '15, and Richard Murray '15. We are working on expanding it to include all or most of our Debriefing group's poems.

Ultimately, we hope to create a small, physical book of poetry and invite all Krista Colleagues to share any poetic reflections they have written during their service journey. The feature poem would be the "Where We're From" poem." -Richard Murray ‘15

Where We're From

We are from roots deeper than the leagues of oceans crossed by ships carrying Kings and Queens as means of production.

We are from 5am wake up calls,scrambled eggs in silk skirts,payless'd, yet more professionalshoes for grown up girls in publicschools hall ways.

We are from from royalty, humbly borne intoa nation who hated usand taught us to hate ourselvesBut, we are from Love.

We are from hour long conversationswith the copier, with our principal,with our piece of heaven in thebasement of the beast.

We are from the land of separateness, abandoned.We are from the Philippines and South Africa,Or rather somewhere in between.

Consummated in the eyes of the Creator who made you too; so We are from Sankofa, as we reach back to move forward.

Moving from “small town Podunk Montana” to the University of Portland was “a big shock that blew my socks off” remembers Lindie Burgess ‘11. Setting aside her degree in mechanical engineering to open herself to the homeless community through a year of service at St. André Bessette Catholic Church in downtown Portland made her world even bigger. Today she draws on those experiences as program manager for the UP’s Moreau Center, guiding students through mind- and heart-blowing week to three week long service immersion experiences.

Recently a student summarized her 3-week Social Justice immersion in the South in two words: “It sucked.” Angered by all the injustice she witnessed as she learned about the civil rights movement and talked to contemporary leaders, the student felt burned out, overwhelmed, and alone. Her companions on this intense experience were scattering to summer or post-grad activities.

“Witnessing other folks’ experiences marks us, and she felt that she couldn’t handle any more suffering,” remembers Lindie. Drawing on her own experiences as a Krista Colleague with plenty of space, time, and fellow travelers to mull things over with, she suggested that the girl acknowledge the suffering with friends and others in her network. “Right now it’s too much, but if you create intentional spaces for conversation, it will come out when you allow it to.”

Wearing her “Krista Colleague hat”, Lindie helps UP strengthen structures to support and prepare students for their service experiences. It’s significant work, because a majority of UP undergrads participate in Moreau Center programs. Lindie knows that preparing them to step into service is just the starting point. “There is so much need right now for folks to be accompanied, and so much burnout associated if folks are not accompanied, especially when they return,” says Lindie.

2016 theme

The Krista Foundation for Global Citizenship 2016 Service Leadership Conference explores the theme "ReStorying Us: Crafting Narratives for Change" There are many narratives that define "us" as a community of service leaders, as a community of faith, as diverse and unified humans. Yet there are many cultural narratives that divide us, promote fear, or are unheard or silenced that reinforce (intentionally and not) the twisting of our collective understanding of "us," and "our" story. Hence - "Restorying us." To restory us is to restore us.

This year we will collectively "workshop" our way through a ReStorying Us process and utilize the conference platform to launch ongoing restorying connections in person and virtually after the conference.

2016 Featured Speaker

We welcome Jaleh Sadravi as our featured speaker. She brings a powerful mix of narrative crafting and technical skill from her life as the daughter of an African American Lutheran pastor and a Persian Shiite Muslim, as a service leader, and professional communications and media expert. Together, we'll craft narratives for change. We'll gain new frameworks and tools for shifting perspectives, conversations, and crafting multimedia stories.

What are you waiting for?! Please sign up to take advantage of this special opportunity to connect with and encourage young adults on their journey of service leadership!

This speech was given at the Krista Foundation Annual Fundraising Breakfast in Spokane, WA on September 29, 2015.

Peter Bittner, 2013 Colleague, served as a youth tutor with AmeriCorps in White Center, WA. Immediately following his year of service, Peter became a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Currently, Peter is a student at the University of California Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism, engaging his passion as a global-citizen storyteller. In addition to his studies, Peter created and leads the Empowering Women and Girls through Entrepreneurship project in Mongolia, as well as serves on the Krista Colleague Leadership Council.

For my fellow Krista Colleagues and me, fall represents a time of newbeginnings in our service journeys: the start of a new school year, a new service-term,a new job. It may mean a new living situation or a new academic program. It's aseason of changes and, while exciting, it can also be a stressful time of year. Peoplefalsely romanticize the concept of long-term service and volunteerism; it's tough!

Reflecting back upon my two service terms, I can attest that for me it was abumpy, exhilarating, and intense ride. In the fall of 2013, as an AmeriCorps youth tutorin White Center, WA, I began to feel the very real pressures of managing anafter-school program composed of diverse, underprivileged youth from mainly Somalirefugee backgrounds. The brief (1-week) honeymoon phase was over and,inexperienced, untrained, and unsupervised, I did my best. I realized I was in over myhead when an older student slapped a much younger one across the face with thebottom of her shoe. This not only caused disruptions for us, but divided a housingcommunity already rife with clan-based tensions carried over from their home country.Without an on-site supervisor or adequate training, I simply had no idea what I hadwalked into!

During the autumn of 2014, as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant inMongolia, I relived many of the same struggles (minus the shoe-slapping) plus somenew ones, in a completely different context. In Ulaanbaatar, I had to adjust to teachingstudents from recently-migrated herder families whose level of English, and interest inlearning it, was virtually zero. In fact, my teachers and I often struggled tocommunicate.In my third week of class, my co-teacher, Oyuna, called "Hello, Peter! Where are you?"my co-teacher asked over the phone.

"Hi, Badmaa Teacher! I'm here in class with our students. Where are you?""Ah, Peter. I'm very sorry! I cannot come today. My cow is melting!""Oh, it's melting! Well, you should put it in the freezer then!" I said jokingly without thefaintest clue what she was talking about."Yes, good idea! I will put it in the freezer now. Sorry, there is blood all over my house.""Ooh! OK, you clean that up! I'll teach, then! No worries!" She's serious!"Peter, I bought-shared a cow with my sister, and my half was inside the house formany weeks. Because it was very cold in the winter! But, you see, spring came early!""I'm sorry to hear that! No problem at all. I'll continue with the lesson, then.""OK! Thank you! Bye bye!"

It was in relaying these often hilarious-in-retrospect anecdotes through my blog, andtaking photos of everything in sight, that I began to process my experiences andrecognize and appreciate the beauty.

As you can imagine... there was a lot to try to make sense of at the culminationof these distinctly diverse and challenging experiences. What did I learn? What did Ilike or dislike? What skills did I gain? Where do I want to go next? In navigating thechoppy and uncertain waters, how can I bypass the dominant cultural narrative of"success equals material wealth" to build upon Christian values of "love thy neighbor"?Should I go to business school? Or try to write a book?

In helping answer all these tricky questions and more, The Krista Foundation forGlobal Citizenship fills a need that no other organization I've encountered has beenable to address: a supportive Christian community offering guidance andencouragement through the variety of difficult decisions I face in my mid-twenties.Hosting a Krista Foundation "Service in Perspective" event at my service-site duringmy AmeriCorps term allowed me to connect with Colleagues through deep, meaningfulconversation surrounding the intercultural and ethical dynamics of effective volunteerservice and gain a new outlook on my daily routines at my community center.

And, most importantly, the Debriefing Retreat facilitated an invaluableopportunity to meet myself at exactly where I was in the months following my movefrom Mongolia to California; in reverse-culture shock, dealing with accumulated tensionand trauma, and searching for direction. Ultimately, the discernment exerciseconducted at the end of the weekend helped me make an important decision: to followmy passion for truthful storytelling as a student at the University of California,Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism.

2012 Krista Colleague Mike Davis spends his days equipping youth to use art to process trauma. Read how he's discerning his next step in growing his vision for service.

Because music got Mike Davis ‘12 safely through a rough adolescence, he's passionate about helping young people to engage, create, and communicate through arts and performance.

While serving with Urban Impact in Seattle, he began to see how the arts could go deeper. Many of the middle schoolers he worked with didn't know how to process their pain in a constructive way. Using hip hop, Mike saw firsthand how students could "get stuff out of them and into a song or a spoken word piece." Releasing their feelings through art helped them process trauma.

As well, students found in Mike a mentor who understood where they came from and what they were dealing with at home. As he writes in "Where I am from"

I'm from...

Black mothers that take upon the roles of black fathers,

Fathers that were forced to forsake their own and encouraged not to bother,

Leaving my momma to teach me to tie my tie and fold down my collar,

I'm from...

How come YOU get to and I can't,

From songs I didn't like but was forced to dance,

From, if another cop looks at me that way I'ma...

From, never mind, I'll just avoid that drama.

One day, a girl who had shared her journal with Mike--including an entry that talked of suicide--came to see her counselor. Told that the counselor was out, she asked to meet with Mike instead. You can't, was the reply-Mike is not certified.

"She needed someone, but on paper I wasn't certified to talk with her," Mike remembers.

Stung by the response, Mike enrolled in Bellevue College. But the road to credentials in art therapy would be long. Aiming for a graduate degree would mean "pounding it out for the next 8 to 10 years, doing my prerequisites and transferring to university."

And unlike many students, Mike's full-time studies joined an already long list of responsibilities as a full-time worker, musician, and dad to his 5 year old son.

A year into his studies, Mike began to wonder if this was what God had in mind for him. After wrestling with this question during the January Debriefing and Discernment retreat, Mike is choosing to put school on hold for now.

"I know what art and music did for me as a teen, so I want to connect performing art and visual art to help kids process major or minor trauma," he says. "That's still my vision, but God is calling me to pick another route, and it's slowly making sense."

During his six years in Seattle, Mike has built relationships with many different community organizations. Connected to faith-based and secular nonprofits as well as the public education system, he is well positioned to use the arts to make a difference in the lives of young Seattle residents.

Now a drop-in coordinator for the Seattle Union Gospel Mission's Youth Reachout Center, Mike thinks that the route God has in mind for him might be less traditional. "It's like God is saying, really experience this road instead of the one you would naturally take. I feel like if I am obedient to what God is saying, all these pieces will fall in place."

Before we can know where we are going, we need to recognize where we are from. At the Debriefing and Discernment Retreats, Krista Foundation Colleagues were invited to claim their roots and their present as they wrote poems prompted by the question, Where am I from?

I'm from the big leaf maple tree with the yellow slide and swing underneath,

From vegetable gardens and woodstoves,

Home cooking and families whose names are like legends in the Valley -- Zender, Strachila, Galbraith, Engholm.

I'm from 40 minute drives to "Town" to get groceries.

I'm from classical piano -- Mozart, Schubert --

From family outings to the city, to the theatre, to the aquarium,

From "Money can't buy you happiness, especially if you don't ever use it," and "Love is something if you give it away."

I'm from sit and stand in church.

Liturgies and Sunday School Songs,

Kyrie eleison and Vespers ‘86,

From Holden's Village Center ceiling and Railroad Creek footbridge.

I'm from the university.

From words like "juxtaposition" and "neocolonialism." I'm from sestinas and short stories,

From "liminal spaces" and "intersectionality"

From walks around Spanaway Lake and late night runs to WinCo.

I'm from silent solidarity, staring at computer screens until our eyes blur and we have to dance around, singing in silly voices until we feel like humans again.

I'm from study away.

From papel picado, chicharrones, and tlayudas

From Día de los Muertos and drinking smoky, burning mezcal until I like it.

From being a güerra, güerra and a señorita.

I'm from misunderstandings and putting my foot in my mouth and talking around my meaning.

I'm from urban bike paths and taking the MAX.

From crisis lines and grupos de apoyo

From "1 in 3 women" and "You deserve to ALWAYS feel safe"

From trying to accompany, to create healing spaces

I'm from Big Sky and Big Horn Mountains

From pow wows and basketball tournaments

From "What kind of Indian are you?" and "Maaaaan, Teacher, you're mean!"

From trying to accompany, to create safe spaces

I'm from Ruined for Life

From tense grocery conversations and game nights

From dinner tables and cooking disasters

I'm from silent solidarity, trying to hold the woes of the world until our eyes blur and we have to dance around, singing in silly voices until we feel like humans again.

From strangers making a home together.

As part of the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, Claire Smith '12 served domestic violence survivors in Oregon and was an academic assistant at a school on the Crow reservation in Montana.

Where I'm From

Justin Willis

I'm from my childhood. Rain, rain, and more rain. The Pacific Northwest at its finest. The Olympics, the X-games, Major League Baseball. I am going to be there one day. Moving from city to city, new friends, new plans. Diversity and public education shaping who I am.

I'm from college. Deepened faith and silent retreats. Still one of the most moving things I have done. Sit with your thoughts and see what happens. Science, so much science. But also social justice. Social justice and science. Best friends, lost friends. Confusion, questioning, anger, pain. Discernment. Choosing what ultimately brought me most joy.

I'm from JVC Northwest. Conversations about 2% milk. Is this even important? Solidarity, social justice, spirituality, community. Mac Attack. Guy, Dave, Courtney, Eddy, Ben, Stephanie, Irena, Jordan, Nic, Todd, Julia, and so many more. Never getting the balance right. Inadequacy, regret, and many mistakes. But ultimately so much joy.

I'm from life after service. Stress about the future. Tests, tests, and more tests, and probably more tests after that. Being welcomed home by my parents. Surviving through adversity and coming out better on the other side.

Justin Willis '13 served in the Recuperative Care Program at the Old Town Clinic, working alongside Portland's homeless population.